Arun Mohan Sukumar’s Midnight’s Machines: A Political History of Technology in India (2019), published by Penguin Random House India, is a groundbreaking exploration of India’s complex relationship with technology since Independence. Winner of the 2019 Ramnath Goenka Award for Non-Fiction and shortlisted for the 2020 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, the book traces how India’s political class, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, has shaped public perceptions of technology while grappling with the nation’s inability to develop it domestically. Sukumar, a PhD candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and former head of the Technology Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), brings a lawyer’s precision and historian’s depth to this narrative. His active presence on X and LinkedIn amplifies his insights, connecting with policy wonks and readers. This article delves into Sukumar’s journey, the creation and impact of Midnight’s Machines, and its place in India’s non-fiction landscape, alongside works like B.D. Garga’s The Art of Cinema.

The Author: Arun Mohan Sukumar’s Scholarly Journey

Arun Mohan Sukumar’s path to writing Midnight’s Machines reflects a blend of legal training, policy expertise, and historical curiosity. A lawyer by education, Sukumar shifted toward technology policy, joining the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, where he led the Technology Initiative from 2015 to 2019. At ORF, he tackled issues like Aadhaar, data breaches, and digital governance, shaping India’s tech policy discourse. His role as a junior fellow at The Fletcher School’s Centre for International Law and Governance and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Digital Economy (2016–2019) honed his global perspective. Currently, as a post-doctoral fellow at The Hague Program for Cyber Norms, he researches international technology governance, focusing on cyber norms and digital sovereignty.

Sukumar’s inspiration for Midnight’s Machines stemmed from a gap in scholarship: while books like David Arnold’s Everyday Technology analyzed India’s technological history, few examined the political class’s role in shaping public attitudes toward it. “Politics has pretty much affected all aspects of our day-to-day lives,” he told The Indian Express, noting the challenge of writing without comparable works as guides. His research, drawing on archival records and open-source reportage, required navigating uncharted terrain, a task he approached with a journalist’s eye for detail and a novelist’s ear for narrative, as Shashi Tharoor praised. The book’s success—earning the Ramnath Goenka Award and Bloomberg’s “Best Books of 2020” nod—established Sukumar as a leading voice in Indian non-fiction.

The Genesis of Midnight’s Machines

Midnight’s Machines was born from Sukumar’s observation that India’s technological trajectory was uniquely shaped by politics, not just science or economics. Launched in 2019 with a panel featuring Shashi Tharoor and Principal Scientific Adviser K. VijayRaghavan, the book addresses a “great conundrum”: why, despite political will and technical ingenuity, has India struggled to become technologically self-sufficient? Sukumar identifies a hidden project launched on August 15, 1947: the state’s effort to influence citizens’ views on technology’s role in society, masking India’s domestic development failures.

His research spanned primary sources—government archives, policy documents, and public speeches—and secondary sources like media reports, offering a panoramic view from Nehru’s scientific bureaucracy to Modi’s Digital India. The absence of similar political histories posed a challenge, but Sukumar’s ORF experience, analyzing real-time tech policies, enriched his historical lens. He drew inspiration from India’s contradictory signals: promoting scientific temper while warning against technology’s dominance, celebrating ISRO’s feats while valorizing jugaad (frugal innovation). The book’s title, evoking Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, captures the birth of India’s technological aspirations at Independence, a theme that resonated with readers and critics like Faisal Devji, who called it a book “that hadn’t been written before.”

The Narrative and Craft of Midnight’s Machines

Midnight’s Machines (256 pages, ISBN: 978-0670091096) chronicles India’s technological history through the lens of political influence, spanning 1947 to 2019. Sukumar argues that every Prime Minister has overseen technology as a “prized portfolio,” from Nehru’s nuclear and space programs to Indira Gandhi’s Green Revolution and Modi’s Aadhaar-driven digital push. Yet, a parallel project shaped public perception: the state’s rhetoric oscillated between glorifying technology (e.g., space launches) and vilifying it (e.g., 1970s computers as “job-guzzling”). This contradiction, Sukumar contends, reflects India’s inability to develop technology domestically, leading to policies that both embraced and resisted modernization.

Key moments include:

• Nehru’s Era: Centralized control by scientist-advisors like Homi Bhabha, fostering nuclear and space “crown jewels” but neglecting grassroots innovation.
• 1970s License Raj: Bureaucratic stifling of computer development, with IBM’s exit in 1978 after George Fernandes’ policies labeled computers as labor threats.
• 1980s Shift: Rajiv Gandhi’s push for IT, met with resistance due to prior skepticism, yet laying groundwork for India’s software boom.
• Y2K and Beyond: The 1999 Y2K crisis spurred Bangalore’s IT hub, “evicting the government from the love story between citizens and technology,” as Sukumar vividly writes.
• Modi’s Tenure: An evolving embrace of technology, from Digital India to Aadhaar, though public doubt persists.

Sukumar’s prose is “fluently written” and “splendidly researched,” per David Arnold, blending archival rigor with accessible storytelling. The book’s structure—chronological yet thematic—covers nuclear programs, IT, and everyday technologies like solar stoves, offering a “bird’s eye view” of India’s tech journey. Critics like Gyan Prakash praise its “compelling” analysis of religion, diplomacy, and public doubt, though some Goodreads readers find it “repetitive” or “superficial” in parts.

Reception and Cultural Impact

Midnight’s Machines has been widely acclaimed, earning the 2019 Ramnath Goenka Award for its “thorough research” and “scale that newspapers cannot aspire to tackle.” Shortlisted for the 2020 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize alongside works like Jairam Ramesh’s A Chequered Brilliance, it was lauded for its “pathbreaking record” of India’s troubled tech relationship. Bloomberg named it among 2020’s best books, and Shashi Tharoor called it a “must-read” for its blend of history, science, and politics.

Culturally, the book fills a gap in Indian non-fiction, akin to B.D. Garga’s The Art of Cinema, which chronicles film history, or A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarok, which reinterprets myth through a modern lens. Sukumar’s focus on technology’s political dimensions resonates in India, where debates on Aadhaar and AI echo 1970s computer fears. Its global reach, via Penguin’s distribution and Sukumar’s X posts, connects it to international tech policy discussions, making it a vital text for understanding India’s modernization.

Sukumar’s Digital Engagement

Sukumar’s social media presence is professional and targeted. On X (@arunmsukumar), he shares book updates, policy analyses, and event highlights, such as the 2019 launch with Tharoor and a 2020 article on India’s tech future. His LinkedIn profile details his ORF and Tufts work, linking to articles and talks, like his Hague Program fellowship announcement. While not as visually engaging as Debasmita Dasgupta’s Instagram (@debasmitadasgupta), his X posts foster dialogue with academics and policymakers, as seen in Ramachandra Guha’s 2020 tweet quoting the book’s R.K. Laxman anecdote. ORF’s institutional accounts (@orfindia) and The Hague Program (@hagueprogram) amplify his research, ensuring visibility. Unlike Garga, whose legacy relies on posthumous archives, Sukumar actively shapes his narrative online, aligning with modern non-fiction authors like Sonia Mehta.

Future Contributions and Legacy

Sukumar’s ongoing PhD and Hague Program research suggest future works on global tech governance, potentially expanding Midnight’s Machines’ themes to cyber norms or AI policy. His role in ORF’s Technology Initiative positioned him as a thought leader, and his awards—Ramnath Goenka and Kamaladevi shortlist—signal lasting influence. In India’s non-fiction scene, where authors like Tripurdaman Singh (Sixteen Stormy Days) explore political history, Sukumar’s tech-focused lens is unique, complementing visual storytellers like Dasgupta or historians like Garga.

Arun Mohan Sukumar’s Midnight’s Machines is a landmark in Indian non-fiction, unraveling the political forces behind India’s technological journey from Nehru to Modi. His journey—from a lawyer to a tech policy scholar at ORF and Tufts—mirrors the book’s blend of rigor and accessibility, earning accolades like the 2019 Ramnath Goenka Award and a 2020 Kamaladevi shortlist.

Through X (@arunmsukumar) and LinkedIn, Sukumar engages a global audience, amplifying his “trail-blazing” narrative, as Tharoor noted. Like B.D. Garga’s cinematic chronicles, Midnight’s Machines preserves a vital Indian story, offering a lens to understand technology’s triumphs and failures. As India navigates AI and digital futures, Sukumar’s work remains a definitive guide, proving politics, not just machines, shapes destiny.